Telecommunications
Telecom companies (AT&T, Verizon, Telefonica, and so on) undermine capitalism. They always act either monopolistically or oligopolistically. If there were any real competition in this space, then our Internet capabilities would blaze at gigabit speeds, text messages would be free, our phones would have myriad more features, and calling anywhere in the world would cost nearly nothing.
Some trailblazers are pushing the limits of what they can do within the system, leveraging the Internet to provide the useful services that telecoms should have provided a decade ago.
For example, I now have a few phone numbers. My personal cell phone number I give out only to people I trust. But every call eventually gets rerouted to my cell phone. Right now, I am out of the country, so my US cell number would be dead under the telecom’s schemes. It isn’t.
If you call my cell phone, the call gets rerouted to my GrandCentral number which I use as my main business line. If I don’t know you, GrandCentral asks you to record your name once so that I can screen the call. In fact, with GrandCentral, I can send you to voicemail, and listen to you record your voicemail live. If you are leaving me an important message and I realize that I want to interrupt and talk to you directly, I just hit a button. Telecoms should have provided this feature ages ago. GrandCentral is free.
That’s not the end of it. I cannot answer a GrandCentral call directly; GrandCentral redirects calls to another number that you can answer. In my case, I reroute to a number I have in San Francisco. It’s my SkypeIn number which I bought with a discount through my Skype Pro annual membership. Skype Pro also comes with voicemail.
The SkypeIn number in San Francisco forwards to my Skype account, so I can answer your calls on my laptop anywhere in the world. The calls can last for hours, it costs me nothing. Of course, I would prefer a free live video chat through Skype.
Moreover, if I am not at my computer, then Skype will forward your call to my foreign phone at cheap Skype Out rates. There’s the magic of the Internet. All of these features, all either free or very cheap. It lets me connect with you as I normally would, (nearly) anywhere in the world.
The telecoms don’t provide these features because they can get away with it. There is no competition which can enter and provide better services. I’m lucky that GrandCentral and Skype exist at all.
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